President Obama's Message for America's Students
Barack Obama speech
President Obama's Message for America's Students
Wakefield Student, Tim Spicer:Good Morning. I wouldlike to extend a warm welcome toPresident Barack Obama, Secretary of educationArnie Duncan, White House staff, school board members,county board members, superintendent Dr. PatrickMurphy, senior staff, principle George Jackson,Wakefield faculty and of course my fellow classmates. (applause) I am honored to have beenchosen to speak before my classmates as well as thestudents across America today. Over the past three years,I've taken advantage of every academic, extracurricular andcommunity opportunity that has been presented to me. As I reflect, a scholarexpressed disappointment in my writing and challenged me todo better; being reassigned to another class was not an option. After that experience,I was determined to excel. Therefore, I managed to succeedin the advanced placement class by maintaining focusalong with using a setback as constructive energy. As I stand before my peerstoday, I want you to know that excellent educationopportunities may be handed to us, but as students wemust take responsibilities for our future. We may be taught but we musttake ownership of our learning. As senior class president Iencourage all of our freshmen to take advantage of all theopportunity's that Wakefield High School has to offer. Along with the inspiration I'vetaken from President Obama, I would not be standing here,before you, to introduce the President of the United Statesif I had not been here at Wakefield high school, inArlington Virginia, pursuing my education. Just as we arefortunate to have President Obama to come here toWakefield today to speak to us, we are also fortunate that afterhe leaves, we will continue to have the opportunities andsupport that Wakefield gives to all of us.
Start speech
At this time it is with greathonor and pride that I ask everyone to stand towelcome the -- (applause) -- to welcome the man thatproved "yes we can." Ladies and Gentleman please joinme in welcoming the President of the United States ofAmerica, Barack Obama. ♪♪(music playing)♪♪ (applause and cheering) The President:Hello, everybody! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Allright, everybody go ahead and have a seat. How iseverybody doing today? (applause) How about Tim Spicer? (applause) I am here withstudents at Wakefield High Schoolin Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuningin from all across America, from kindergartenthrough 12th grade. And I am just so glad thatall could join us today. And I want to thank Wakefieldfor being such an outstanding host. Give yourselves abig round of applause. (applause) I know that for many ofyou, today is the first day of school. And for thoseof you in kindergarten, or starting middleor high school, it's your first dayin a new school, so it's understandable ifyou're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniorsout there who are feeling pretty good right now -- (applause) -- with just onemore year to go. And no matter whatgrade you're in, some of you are probably wishingit were still summer and you could've stayed in bed just alittle bit longer this morning. I know that feeling. When I was young, myfamily lived overseas. I lived in Indonesiafor a few years. And my mother, she didn't havethe money to send me where all the American kidswent to school, but she thought it was importantfor me to keep up with an American education. So shedecided to teach me extra lessons herself, Mondaythrough Friday. But because shehad to go to work, the only time she could do itwas at 4:30 in the morning. Now, as you might imagine, Iwasn't too happy about getting up that early. And a lot of times, I'd fallasleep right there at the kitchen table. But wheneverI'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and she'd say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster." (laughter) So I know that some of you arestill adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here todaybecause I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talkwith you about your education and what's expected of all ofyou in this new school year. Now, I've given a lot ofspeeches about education. And I've talked aboutresponsibility a lot. I've talked about teachers'responsibility for inspiring students and pushingyou to learn. I've talked about your parents'responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and youget your homework done, and don't spend every wakinghour in front of the TV or with the Xbox. I've talked alot about your government's responsibility for settinghigh standards, and supporting teachers and principals, andturning around schools that aren't working, where studentsaren't getting the opportunities that they deserve. But at the end of the day, wecan have the most dedicated teachers, the mostsupportive parents, the best schools in the world-- and none of it will make a difference, none of it willmatter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unlessyou show up to those schools, unless you pay attentionto those teachers, unless you listen to yourparents and grandparents and other adults and put in thehard work it takes to succeed. That's what I wantto focus on today: the responsibility eachof you has for your education. I want to start with theresponsibility you have to yourself. Every single oneof you has something that you're good at. Every single one ofyou has something to offer. And you have aresponsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity aneducation can provide. Maybe you could be a greatwriter -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in anewspaper -- but you might not know it until you write thatEnglish paper -- that English class paper that'sassigned to you. Maybe you could be an innovatoror an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with thenext iPhone or the new medicine or vaccine -- but you mightnot know it until you do your project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor ora senator or a Supreme Court justice -- but you might notknow that until you join student government or the debate team. And no matter what youwant to do with your life, I guarantee that you'llneed an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or ateacher, or a police officer? You want to be anurse or an architect, a lawyer or a memberof our military? You're going to need a goodeducation for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop out of schooland just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it andwork for it and learn for it. And this isn't just importantfor your own life and your own future. What you makeof your education will decide nothing less than thefuture of this country. The future of Americadepends on you. What you're learning in schooltoday will determine whether we as a nation can meet ourgreatest challenges in the future. You'll need theknowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in scienceand math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to developnew energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights andcritical-thinking skills you gain in history and socialstudies to fight poverty and homelessness, crimeand discrimination, and make our nationmore fair and more free. You'll need the creativity andingenuity you develop in all your classes to build newcompanies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. We need every single one of youto develop your talents and your skills and your intellect so youcan help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that -- if youquit on school -- you're not just quitting on yourself,you're quitting on your country. Now, I know it's not alwayseasy to do well in school. I know a lot of you havechallenges in your lives right now that can make it hard tofocus on your schoolwork. I get it. I know what it's like. My father left my familywhen I was two years old, and I was raised by a singlemom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay thebills and wasn't always able to give us the thingsthat other kids had. There were times when I missedhaving a father in my life. There were times whenI was lonely and I felt like I didn't fit in. So I wasn't always as focused asI should have been on school, and I did some thingsI'm not proud of, and I got in more troublethan I should have. And my life could have easilytaken a turn for the worse. But I was -- I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances,and I had the opportunity to go to college and law schooland follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady MichelleObama, she has a similar story. Neither of her parentshad gone to college, and they didn'thave a lot of money. But they worked hard,and she worked hard, so that she could go to thebest schools in this country. Some of you might nothave those advantages. Maybe you don't have adultsin your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family haslost their job and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhoodwhere you don't feel safe, or have friends who arepressuring you to do things you know aren't right. But at the end of the day, thecircumstances of your life -- what you look like,where you come from, how much money you have, whatyou've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse forneglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talkingback to your teacher, or cutting class, ordropping out of school. There is no excusefor not trying. Where you are right nowdoesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's writtenyour destiny for you, because here in America,you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That's what young people likeyou are doing every day, all across America. Young people like JazminPerez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak Englishwhen she first started school. Neither of her parentshad gone to college. But she worked hard,earned good grades, and got a scholarship toBrown University -- is now in graduateschool, studying public health, on her way tobecoming Dr. Jazmin Perez. I'm thinking about AndoniSchultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought braincancer since he was three. He's had to endure all sortsof treatments and surgeries, one of whichaffected his memory, so it took him much longer --hundreds of extra hours -- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind. He's headed tocollege this fall. And then there'sShantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from fosterhome to foster home in the toughest neighborhoodsin the city, she managed to get a job ata local health care center, start a program to keepyoung people out of gangs, and she's on track to graduatehigh school with honors and go on to college. And Jazmin, Andoni, andShantell aren't any different from any of you. They face challenges in theirlives just like you do. In some cases they've got it alot worse off than many of you. But they refused to give up. They chose to takeresponsibility for their lives, for their education, andset goals for themselves. And I expect all ofyou to do the same. That's why today I'm callingon each of you to set your own goals for your education-- and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be somethingas simple as doing all your homework, payingattention in class, or spending some timeeach day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to getinvolved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteerin your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand upfor kids who are being teased or bullied because of whothey are or how they look, because you believe, like I do,that all young people deserve a safe environmentto study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to takebetter care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along thoselines, by the way, I hope all of you arewashing your hands a lot, and that you stay home fromschool when you don't feel well, so we can keep peoplefrom getting the flu this fall and winter. But whatever you resolve to do,I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes you getthat sense from TV that you can be rich and successful withoutany hard work -- that your ticket to success is throughrapping or basketball or being areality TV star. Chances are you're not goingto be any of those things. The truth is, beingsuccessful is hard. You won't love everysubject that you study. You won't click with everyteacher that you have. Not every homework assignmentwill seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute. And you won't necessarilysucceed at everything the first time you try. That's okay. Some of the most successfulpeople in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. J.K. Rowling's -- who wrote Harry Potter -- her first Harry Potter bookwas rejected 12 times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from hishigh school basketball team. He lost hundreds of gamesand missed thousands of shots during hiscareer. But he once said, "I have failed over and overand over again in my life. And that's why I succeed." These people succeeded becausethey understood that you can't let your failures defineyou -- you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let themshow you what to do differently the next time. So if you get into trouble,that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you needto try harder to act right. If you get a bad grade, thatdoesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need tospend more time studying. No one's born beinggood at all things. You become good at thingsthrough hard work. You're not a varsity athlete thefirst time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note thefirst time you sing a song. You've got to practice. The same principle appliesto your schoolwork. You might have to do a mathproblem a few times before you get it right. You might have to readsomething a few times before you understand it. You definitely have to do a fewdrafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in. Don't be afraidto ask questions. Don't be afraid to askfor help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn'ta sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength becauseit shows you have the courage to admit when you don'tknow something, and that then allows youto learn something new. So find an adult thatyou trust -- a parent, a grandparent or teacher, acoach or a counselor -- and ask them to help you stay ontrack to meet your goals. And even when you're struggling,even when you're discouraged, and you feel like otherpeople have given up on you, don't ever give up on yourself,because when you give up on yourself, you giveup on your country. The story of Americaisn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who keptgoing, who tried harder, who loved their countrytoo much to do anything less than their best. It's the story of students whosat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolutionand they founded this nation. Young people. Students who sat where you sit75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war;who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit20 years ago who founded Google and Twitter and Facebook andchanged the way we communicate with each other. So today, I wantto ask all of you, what's your contributiongoing to be? What problems areyou going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comeshere in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all ofyou did for this country? Now, your families,your teachers, and I are doing everything wecan to make sure you have the education you need toanswer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up yourclassrooms and get you the books and the equipment and thecomputers you need to learn. But you've got todo your part, too. So I expect all of youto get serious this year. I expect you to put your besteffort into everything you do. I expect great thingsfrom each of you. So don't let us down. Don't let your familydown or your country down. Most of all, don'tlet yourself down. Make us all proud. Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you. (applause)
Comments
Post a Comment